Global Agenda

I know, GA2 isn't coming out until next year but I felt this would be a nice topic to discuss on what players actually want from GA2 & my personal experience with GA1 as well as what you think of Hi-Rez as a whole.

Considering the PVE in GA1 is average, & with the fact I never really PVE'd much, most of my game time was spent in PVP. I remember the most fun in the game being the Mercenary matches, being the tank on a point or the Engineer in a corner or in a tower pushing people back with Rockets, or being the Bombercon roaming around stealthed looking for easy prey or an engineer to harass with bombs. I've played the sniper (Terribly I might add) & have had good times & bad ones with the game. I've seen botters farming robots in the desert, I've seen them aimbotting in PVP and PVE. The game didn't have a lot of gold sellers, but oh man did it have cheaters. That was part of the fun, though. Finding those who used hacks or bots & making sure they were reported with fierce nerd rage!

I put money into the game, yes. I first got it when it went B2P model with no subscriptions. I had wanted to try this game for a while & now it's subscription free & on a steam sale? Yes, I think I will buy that! Later I would end up gladly spending more money for boosters & cosmetic items. I enjoyed the game, so why not? I never realized the game would eventually fade away. The playerbase was currently growing, and continued to grow for quite a while. I was having a blast. Then I heard the news, "Hi-Rez announces Tribes Ascend. Wins several awards!" At first I thought, "Wow, congrats Hi-Rez!" Little did I know that this news was a sign of the Global Agenda Apocalypse.

I never got into the Medic, about when I was starting to try it the games playerbase started to dwindle. Queues slowly went from being a few seconds, to a few minutes, then upwards to 10-15 minutes. I thought people were leaving GA to play Tribes, so I figured why don't I give Tribes a shot? GA will be fine, won't it? I can always come back... Or so I thought...

Tribes Ascend later became my main point of interest for a while, which later ended up taking priority from the developers at Hi-Rez & GA slowly dwindled down to it's Free Agent update, which at the time caught my eye & I was back into GA for a few more months. After playing T:A for so long I nearly forgot how good it was to play GA again. I bought some more boosters, & had another good old time doing what you do in GA. AVA's & Mercenary games. I managed to get into a decent Agency that ranked 3rd for a month in AVA, & I remembered why I played GA in the first place. Tribes got nothin' on this game! Then about 3 months into the Free Agent update, the game started to dwindle again. Day after day I saw less people in queues, less people chatting & LFG. Then, eventually the game just became quiet. Queues were up to 2 hours to wait & nearly everyone was simply playing in the VR Simulator Room. The VR room was all good fun, but it wasn't anything like a real game. And then the game just... Stopped. The VR nearly always empty, only a few people in Queues. It became an empty desert, void of nearly all organic life. The dome had only a few stragglers struggling to get by, trying so hard to find people to play with. It was like you were slowly sinking in quick sand, trying as hard as you could to pull yourself up... "LFG *cough* Need *cough hack wheeze* Tank...". I was sad...

Since my days playing WoW I hadn't enjoyed an MMO this much. I played WoW, yes but GA was just so damn fun. It's PVP was perfect, at least I thought it was. WoW couldn't do what GA did to my mood in a million years. Even now I still feel Nostalgia when I think of GA, but not for WoW. IMO, GA is better than WoW at least in the PVP department. To see this game in such a state was like having your heart broken by your long time lover for no reason at all. "I'm sorry honey, but I'm just not into you anymore."

Then I recieved news that excited me! Oh, Hi-Rez sent an E-mail about what they should do with GA, and they wanted our oppinion!? Oh happy days! A glimmer of hope has arrived! I can see a glimpse of light in the darkness! That faint almost dimmed out glimmer started to grow brighter & brighter! AND THEN GA2 was announced! I was excited for the first time in a long time for a game. I felt nostalgia course through my veins, & I remembered why I wanted to play GA again!

And then... Smite...

Oh yes, another game from Hi-Rez is getting a lot of attention. I decided, since I enjoyed GA, T:A, I might enjoy this game. And I was right! I was never one for mobas, but this... This I like! 3rd person camera, skill based, & updates every 2 weeks? Oh yea, this is nice. I got myself the Ultimate God Pack to show my support for Hi-Rez once again! And then I heard the news... "Support for T:A has been suspended to focus on Smite." The same news I've heard before, but with GA...

Now, I understand Hi-Rez is a business & they need to focus on profit in order to survive. What I don't understand is why these games kept failing in the first place? Is Smite destined to suffer the same fate as GA & T:A? Will Hi-Rez actually stick with a game they make or will they keep dropping support more than Brett Favre drops footballs? Can we expect the same amount of loyalty from them with ♥♥♥♥♥♥ we did with GA1 & T:A? Will they just drop all support again & leave us in the desert surrounded by killer robots?

I just don't know what to think about Hi-Rez anymore... I love their games & I know they put more money into them than I ever would but each time I feel like I'm gaining momentum in a game, suddenly I get pulled down because of their shiney new product & then I do it all over again.